A Coat of Paint

When my youngest was born, we transformed our dining room into a playroom. I had found that all of my children liked to be on the same level with me (upstairs, downstairs, etc.), so it was easier to dedicate an entire room to the toy mess than to have it strewn throughout our living area. Our dining room table at the time came with four chairs and a non-expandable table. We were now up to six people, so the table was donated to the local Good Will. We screwed a fence across the large opening to the hallway, and installed an expandable gate across the opening leading to the kitchen - wallah! a totally functional playroom.

Last year, my baby entered public school. She no longer needed to be around me constantly. The playroom had served it's purpose and it was time to move on. So we moved the toys down to the basement, removed the gate and fence, puttied the holes left in the walls - and we had our dining room back, sans furniture. Of course we also had some artistic pencil and pen scrawls on some walls and a lovely peanutbutter stain on the rug. (A 2yo DD, a 2lb tub of peanutbutter - use your imagination).

This fall, a friend converted her dining room into an office and gave us her dining room furniture!!! (God is sooo amazing in providing us with not only what we need, but sometimes what we desire as well!) A table with six chairs, that expands to seat 12, a glass-fronted china cabinet and a buffet. But, umm, hmmm. . . the pale blue rug and the light pink walls just don't look quite right with the blond wood furniture. And after seeing my SIL's (sister-in-law) house this past summer, with all of the rich, dark colors she has on her walls, I've been dreaming of COLOR!

That brings us to now. We've got two gallons of paint, two willing DC, and a rug that's going to be ripped up anyway :o)













































Umm, wait a minute. . .that's not the color I picked. My walls are now HOT PINK!?!?



It took 4 coats of paint and a lot of labor on DH's part, but my walls are finally the deep, rich, cranberry color that I picked :o) And the floors? We selected a laminate and had them professionally installed - dining room, into the hallway. It all turned out so beautiful that we took our Christmas photo in our new dining room.

Happy Holidays

Here's a special little something for all our friends and family out there :o)
Turn your speakers on and click on the link below.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9594345523


And the children worked really hard on this one.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1116736966


Both made possible by OfficeMax®.

It's A Dog's Life

I am not a dog person. On most days I cannot believe that we actually have a dog living in our house. Apparently a dog who is being spoiled rotten. This picture must have been taken by the kids because I think I would have blown if I had seen the dog cuddled under an afghan!

And what is with those ears? This picture was taken the day after we brought NutMeg home. Her right ear is flopped. Still cute and lovable, but we're fairly certain that when we first saw her two days earlier both ears were standing straight up.

Then, just two weeks later, both ears are standing straight up again. But don't get too used to it, because just a few days after that...

...her left ear was flopping. This time significantly more than when we had first brought her home. But it doesn't end there...

Not long after that, both ears were straight up again.

And now (you guessed it)...

Her right ear is flopping again.

Now the vet has told me that this is all perfectly normal. Her ears seem to be changing with each growth spurt. It will be interesting to see the final outcome - up, down, left or right?

Family Workday

Fall has finally come to our bit of the world, so we decided that it would be a good Saturday to gather the family and work together. The flower beds in front of the house really needed some attention, and I needed to get the fall bulbs planted so we'd have some spring flowers. Oldest DD wasn't too thrilled with the idea. (Can everyone hear their own teenagers groaning about "family time"?) We forced her to work with us and bring the dog outside at the same time. NutMeg is thrilled with the cooler temperatures and loves being outside. She needs a bit more training to be a perfect gardener though. NutMeg decided that the tree she was tied to needed a bit of pruning. Here she is biting off a branch. She has also trimmed my azaleas in the backyard. Later we allowed NutMeg to help dig the holes needed to plant the Mums. That was right up her alley.




My youngest DD decided that her job was to take pictures of the family work-a-thon. She certainly gets some interesting angles.


This is me, digging up weeds.




DH is working hard.





And, of course, the mandatory self-portrait.



Everyone worked hard at pulling up weeds and dead summer flowers, then planting some new chrysanthemums and tulip bulbs. The Morning Glories were still looking really good, so we left them for some other weekend. They'll die after a frost, then we'll have to cut them off the railings and get rid of the vines.


























All-in-all a good day's work, and the front of the house is looking a bit nicer :o)

Baptism at the Lake

On Sunday, September 30th, DS and middle DD were baptized. It's been over three years since our church has held a baptism. This time it was held at a local lake. There were 17 people baptized, several were siblings, and two whole families. Mostly, the fathers baptized their children. It was very special to watch DH baptize DS and DD. I realize that there may be several of you reading this blog who observe infant baptism and have never heard of, or don't understand "adult" baptism.

The church we attend belongs to the Evangelical Free denomination. We believe that salvation is an individual choice that is made after someone is old enough to understand what they have been/are being taught.

For God so loved the world

that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him

shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

Although we pray and hope that our children will choose to follow Christ, this is not something that we can decide for them. When they are infants we might have them dedicated in church. This is when we stand in front of our congregation and declare that we will raise them in a Christian home and teach them about God, but a dedication ceremony has nothing to do with their salvation.

Oldest DS accepted Christ as his Savior when he was just 4 years old. The week leading up to Easter we had a basket of Resurrection Eggs that we opened each night and talked about a different part of Christ's death on the cross. DS was very affected by the stories and chose to accept Christ as his Savior.

Middle DD was a bit older when she accepted Christ. There was nothing spectacular going on, it was just an ordinary day when she approached me with some questions. We talked about sin, we talked about the consequences of sin and we talked about redemption and forgiveness. Middle DD prayed for Jesus to forgive her of her sins and thanked Him for dying for her.

Baptism, for us, is a celebration. It is a public declaration that the individual believes that Christ has died on the cross for his sins, and he has chosen to follow Him. Baptism is a symbolic representation of the sins being washed away, and the individual becoming a new creation.

Our celebration continued with lunch afterwards :o)

Treats for Halloween

As Halloween approaches and the stores fill with aisles of candy, many people look at us strangely and ask "Since you don't eat artificial colors and flavors, what do you eat for Halloween?"This is a fair enough question, especially if they're looking to treat my kids :o)

This is a sampling of treats that I found today at Wal-Mart. Our very favorite is the bag of Linette Peanut Butter Cups. Inside this bag they are individually packaged for Halloween (and since they aren't such a well-known name brand, they cost less!)

Other treats are Honey Teddy Grahams, and Utz Pretzels (Bats and Jacks). Both FG, stage 1.

My oldest DD loves Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses. These are only available at Halloween. The little rectangular shaped ones are not approved for the Feingold Program.

I also found some Stauffer's Original Animal Crackers. I'm not sure if the individual bags are decorated for Halloween, but they're FG approved stage 1!

The last treasure at Wal-Mart were the large bags of tiny raisin boxes. Raisins are stage 2 (a higher salicylate). Last year my DC weren't able to eat raisins. But since we followed the SCDiet for several months last spring we have been able to add salicylates back into our diet. So along with being FG approved stage 2, raisins are also SCD legal. Truly a treasure :o)

Meet NutMeg!

This is NutMeg. In a moment of weakness? insanity? I agreed to get a puppy. NutMeg actually belongs to oldest DD. She's an early birthday gift. Oldest DD is now getting a huge lesson in responsibility and putting others needs before your own. The puppy has been waking up around 6:30 in the morning, just in time for oldest DD to take her outside, clean up after her, feed her breakfast, try to eat something herself and run for the bus.

NutMeg thinks of DS as another puppy. He rolls on the floor to play with her and she jumps all over him. We're trying to get DS to stop acting like a puppy because it is encouraging NutMeg to nip at him, and we don't want that.

We were worried about youngest DD's reaction to a dog. She's been scared of dogs her entire life. She sat on the floor, NutMeg climbed into her lap and began to lick her face. She loves it. I don't think we have to worry too much anymore.

Oldest DD is extremely happy. Although she's not as thrilled that she has to share the dog with everyone else in the house.

This is the first picture of the puppy. All ready for the car ride home.

NutMeg even got to meet the neighbors. This is Brody. The dog of oldest DD's best friend. Brody finds NutMeg a bit annoying, she thinks of his tail as a moving target.

I'm adjusting to a dog in the house. It's probably better that we got her now just as school started, before I got used to being alone in the house again :o) At this point it's going better than expected. NutMeg is behaving so well that I mentioned to DH perhaps we should get rid of the kids and just keep the dog :o)

Schools Back in Session!!!

Here they are, my oldest two. Ready to start their Middle School Adventure in a new building. Oldest DD is in 8th grade. DS is starting 7th. DD said she was the only one among her friends wearing something not skin-tight and black. I, for one, am glad. She's not thrilled with her electives. She signed up for chorus, but now she doesn't want to sing. She also got Dance/Aerobics/Gymnastics - but none of her friends are in the class. DS got an elective called "Simple and Motorized Machines". They'll be making working models out of things like Legos. "And," DS groans, "We'll be graded!" He also got Intro to Keyboard and has already shown me everything he learned today.


Middle DD is in a school that's new to her. She's starting 3rd grade this year. She may have the opportunity to take a string instrument this year. She'll also be able to sign up for chorus. And this is the first year that she'll be getting letter grades.

Youngest DD is excited about Kindergarten. She loved school last year and I'm sure this year will be the same. Of course, it's only a half day program. Rather ridiculous considering what they'll be teaching them in just 2 hours.

And me? I get a few hours all by myself! I've been waiting all summer for this :o)

Vacation

Another vacation at the beach. This is youngest DD with her two cousins. They asked to be buried in the sand.

It wasn't a very nice week weather wise. All reports were great until we got there. The Weather Channel had changed their report to rain for the entire week! It was cloudy, overcast and fairly cool, but we got to the beach anyway.

The kids found the weather to be perfect for boogie boarding. As parents we found the waves to be a tad bit rough - perhaps we're just getting old :o)

They also found the waves to be perfect for jumping.


Inside we enjoyed games and videos, and more videos, and rambunctious children, and more videos. Yeah, okay, it was a long week.

Disney

How could I forget to blog about Disney World?

Right after school got out, oldest DD and DS traveled with Grandmom and Grandpop to visit their Aunt and Uncle. Since that left us with only two DC we decided to take a short vacation and wound up going to Disney for a day.


The girls were too little to remember ever really being there before, so they didn't know what to expect. We decided that since we only had the two girls we would do the very girly thing and get autographs of princesses. Along the way we also secured the autographs of whatever other characters we ran into.

We stood in line practically forever to get the autographs of three princesses. The one thing I wasn't ready for? Princess small talk. Cinderella looks at my girls in their matching shirts - "Oh! Are you sisters?" They nod. "I have some sisters too, but they really aren't very nice. I'm sure you two get along really well!" Their favorite princess was Belle.

All in all it was a really hot day. We spent the majority of the day waiting in line. Of course we did "It's a Small World." They've changed the song and eliminated the second verse. There are some things that just shouldn't be messed with.

The girls were really tired and whiney. We spent all this money for this!?! Then for dinner we decided to try to get reservations for a character dinner. More waiting in line . . . more whining . . . Then we got inside. Within 10 minutes the music started playing and the girls were swept into an impromptu parade with Pooh and Tigger. I didn't know their smiles could be so big!

Even DH was enchanted. In all the times he had been to Disney he had never been to a character dinner. So after a hot and tiring day, it all ended well.